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Surviving the Siren Festival

The first thing I noticed when I exited the train Saturday afternoon at Coney Island for the *Village Voice'*s Siren Music Festival was the heat. The ill, heavy, makes-everyone-ornery-and-uncomfortable heat. The second thing I noticed was the hipster fashion. Leaving the train station I passed a man wearing a shirt with "I listen to bands that don't even exist yet," scrawled across his chest.

The festival, held every summer at Coney Island since 2001 by the Village Voice, is free and there are two stages situated four blocks apart. If you want to Shoot the Freak or have your weight guessed in between shows, you'll have plenty of chances.

More photos after the jump. At 5:00, I made my way to the Stillwell stage to see the set by Beach House. Earlier in the year, this Baltimore-based duo put out a lovely rainy-day record called Devotion, but this was the furthest thing from a rainy day. Lead singer Victoria Legrand was dressed all wrong, in head-to-toe black. Her band mates had planned better: the guitarist had on denim shorts and a purple shirt, and the drummer wore a striped tanktop and Lennonesque shades.

Wet hair hanging past her shoulders, Legrand assured the crowd that "everything is going to be O.K. We won't all die." Easy for her to say: she had elbow room. Still, as the sun stretched over top of the stage, the band's dissonant yet mellow guitars and euphoric keyboards were the musical equivalent of aloe vera lotion. Before "Master of None" she again voiced her concern for the crowd braving the heat: "Are you staying hydrated?" Everyone screamed, even though most people were staying dehydrated by drinking Budweiser and sweating.

A hot dog was in order. Nathan's, the immortalized frankfurter joint, was the clear choice. Alex, our photographer, brought along a friend, Andrew Whiteman, who happens to be a member of Broken Social Scene, one of my favorite bands, that also happened to be playing at 8:00. Andrew (also the front man of Apostle of Hustle) wore a navy blue tanktop, mirrored sunglasses, a black bowler's hat, and a very well manicured mustache. We stood in line discussing our orders, Apostle of Hustle's tour with Andrew Bird, and the beast that is the summer music festival. The general consensus: cheese fries were necessary, Andrew Bird is the best singer songwriter out there right now, and seeing a show outdoors at a festival is quite possibly the worst way to see a band live (though I did agree to see Broken Social Scene again in two weeks at Lollapalooza).

No one can be sure of the exact number of members in Toronto indie outfit Broken Social Scene. And no one should really care. Founding member Kevin Drew started the show by announcing that their drummer had heat stroke (though he managed to re-join the band halfway through the set) but what really disappointed us was the complete lack of women onstage. (Feist is arguably the group's most popular member.) About five songs into the set, Drew proclaimed that anyone wanting to join the band had to ask him- or herself, "Do you have enough guts? Do you have the bravery?" Which seemed a little preachy until he brought out a girl whom the band had met an hour before the show to fill in for the lack of female vocalists. Not only did she hit every note, she was a crowd favorite as she danced and sang alongside of who knows how many members of Broken Social Scene.

I'd like for this to end with an a-ha, a cool dip in the Atlantic followed by a relaxing ride under the colored lights of the ferris wheel, a fresh night breeze, but I'd be lying—it never cooled off.